The latest research from the UK’s largest independent road safety charity, IAM RoadSmart, has revealed positive long-term trends, with motorists continuing to find speeding less acceptable for the last six consecutive years.
IAM RoadSmart’s latest Safety Culture Report, which tracks drivers’ changing attitudes to key road safety issues over time, discovered that 42 per cent of the 2,000 people surveyed at the end of 2021, thought it was acceptable to drive at 80mph on the motorway, compared to 56 per cent six years ago. Furthermore, 21 per cent thought it was acceptable to drive even faster than 80mph on the motorway compared to a chilling 28 per cent in 2016.
Meanwhile, self-reported speeding in towns and cities in the last 30 days has also reduced in the last five years, with 10 per cent of those surveyed in 2021 admitting to driving five miles per hour over the speed limit on a residential street, compared to 17 per cent of those surveyed back in 2016.
Neil Greig, Director of Policy and Research welcomed such downward trends but insisted more needs to be done to ensure these figures continue to decrease: “Acceptability of speeding on motorways is still far too high but the downward trends of drivers’ opinions are a positive sign. Actual speeding behaviour in towns and cities has also improved as more and more drivers appear to understand the link between speed and serious injury.
“Those who believe it is acceptable to drive at speeds greater than the limit are simply not listening to the warnings or taking notice of the frequent police messaging. Speeding is responsible for around 12 deaths each day on UK roads, we clearly need to do more to educate drivers on the fatal consequences of speeding.”
